"We can't condone people putting up covers of music. It's really there for original content." That's the word from Guitar Hero World Tour director Brian Bright, who's well aware that his upcoming game's music creator may also double as a copyright infringer. Speaking to 1UP, Bright explained that uploaded, custom-made tunes will be monitored by Activision and indiscriminately yanked should they contain any suspiciously familiar riffs.
"If there's a licensed song and someone holds the copyright to it, we'll take it down regardless of whether or not someone complains," added Bright. We sincerely hope this gives you pause before you decide to share your unoriginal, ill-advised rendition of "Motel" California with the rest of the world.
Guitar Hero World Tour and its 86 master tracks are out on October 26th.
Reader Comments (47)
Posted: Sep 29th 2008 4:39PM (Unverified) said
Well there goes the "You can make any song you want" arguement against Rockbands DLC.
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Posted: Sep 29th 2008 5:41PM KeenCommander said
No it doesn't, you can "make" any song you like - as long as you don't post it to the web. You just can't download every song ever written, you've got to do the work yourself.
Personally, I really am not convinced it's going to be elaborate enough for to anyone to create (effectively) songs beyond basic alt. rock that are recognizable enough that anyone would actually want to play them.
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Personally, I really am not convinced it's going to be elaborate enough for to anyone to create (effectively) songs beyond basic alt. rock that are recognizable enough that anyone would actually want to play them.
Posted: Sep 29th 2008 5:46PM (Unverified) said
Okay, let me correct myself; you won't be able to play a nice sounding recording unless you waste enough of your life to master a song maker in Guitar Hero. Sounds a lot nicer that way, huh?
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Posted: Sep 29th 2008 7:15PM (Unverified) said
Don't forget that this song maker has a limit of 3:00, only about 1000 notes, and no vocals.
I still don't understand why fanboys who are 12 years old can keep going on how GH will be better than RB "DLC"...
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I still don't understand why fanboys who are 12 years old can keep going on how GH will be better than RB "DLC"...
Posted: Sep 29th 2008 10:11PM (Unverified) said
GH fanboys? Where? I haven't seen one on this website at all.
There are only RB fanboys and neutral parties.
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There are only RB fanboys and neutral parties.
Posted: Sep 29th 2008 6:29PM (Unverified) said
You're right. In order to help avoid lawsuits, they publicly can't endorse users mimicking known tracks, even though everyone knows that's the whole point. The ability to make original works is just a bonus.
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Posted: Sep 30th 2008 5:50PM (Unverified) said
Yeah. Besides, I don't think they will have people scoping through every song to delete them.
I think they will actually take the youtube apporach, and have copyright owners compain first, before removal.
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I think they will actually take the youtube apporach, and have copyright owners compain first, before removal.
Posted: Sep 29th 2008 5:22PM darkinchworm said
With any luck, Neversoft will superman dat hoe.
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Posted: Sep 29th 2008 4:50PM (Unverified) said
Posted: Sep 29th 2008 8:31PM Deadmeat1240 said
I was thinking the same thing. Joystiq.com, NSFW! LOL
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Posted: Sep 29th 2008 4:56PM (Unverified) said
Looking closely, I think it's actually a spaceship...
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Posted: Sep 29th 2008 5:00PM (Unverified) said
I really hope they at least do some fan-service be adapting a "We're removing it...very slooooowly...." approach.
Honestly I don't mind people re-uploading Freebird after the "monthly cleansing".
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Honestly I don't mind people re-uploading Freebird after the "monthly cleansing".
Posted: Sep 29th 2008 5:10PM (Unverified) said
what is more shocking is that they really think that it is supposed to be for original compositions. when i first heard about the create-a-song feature, the first thing i thought of was "how close can i mimic songs i love that are never gonna be released as dlc?" i don't give a crap about original compositions, mostly because it is gonna devolve into "ttfaf"-like 133t noodley noodle fests.
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Posted: Sep 29th 2008 5:36PM (Unverified) said
OK, that's great and all - I understand, gotta protect the copyright and so on...but then...
...they better have the songs we WANT so we don't have to create them. The best way to stop me from "covering" Tesla in GH4 is to let me download Tesla in GH4.
(BTW, where's the Tesla?! Seriously.)
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...they better have the songs we WANT so we don't have to create them. The best way to stop me from "covering" Tesla in GH4 is to let me download Tesla in GH4.
(BTW, where's the Tesla?! Seriously.)
Posted: Sep 29th 2008 5:38PM (Unverified) said
So... they're going to pay employees to sift through user-created songs and identify familiar ones? Sounds like that's going to cost some money unless they've somehow programmed a computer to have infinite knowledge of music and the nuance to know when one piece of music is original or not.
I wonder how exactly they intend to pay for this. I'd love to think that a video game company is going to pay employees to sit and filter through user-created content without users ever seeing an increased cost for the service, but I doubt that is realistic.
Switching now to a more optimistic view, perhaps they somehow are getting incentives from the music industry to try and protect copyrights? Maybe discounts on licensing songs? I hope that's the case.
Oh well, don't matter to me. Rock Band 2 '08!
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I wonder how exactly they intend to pay for this. I'd love to think that a video game company is going to pay employees to sit and filter through user-created content without users ever seeing an increased cost for the service, but I doubt that is realistic.
Switching now to a more optimistic view, perhaps they somehow are getting incentives from the music industry to try and protect copyrights? Maybe discounts on licensing songs? I hope that's the case.
Oh well, don't matter to me. Rock Band 2 '08!
Posted: Sep 29th 2008 5:53PM Keithustus said
"should they contain any suspiciously familiar riffs" Watch out, my song will use the same notes that all other pieces of music ever use!
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Posted: Sep 29th 2008 6:23PM (Unverified) said
Wonder how they'll treat songs in the public domain, I know I'll be making Miserlou very early on.
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Posted: Sep 29th 2008 6:36PM The Man with a girls name said
So... anyone wanna play Rock Band 2? I've got like 300 songs on it, so you're bound to find one you like...
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Posted: Sep 29th 2008 7:24PM (Unverified) said
Pretty much makes the creation mode useless.....
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Posted: Sep 30th 2008 3:53AM (Unverified) said
Not really.
The PS3 version can import MIDI files, so they only need to be hosted somewhere.
You could probably even use the PS3 browser, go to a sharing site, and save it to the HD from there.
Import into GH and its done.
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The PS3 version can import MIDI files, so they only need to be hosted somewhere.
You could probably even use the PS3 browser, go to a sharing site, and save it to the HD from there.
Import into GH and its done.
Posted: Sep 29th 2008 9:56PM (Unverified) said
OK, so I know the Wii version lets you export custom songs to an SD card without any DRM crap (Not sure 'bout the other consoles), so won't that mean that there's bound to be some online unofficial community for sharing *those* songs?
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Posted: Sep 30th 2008 2:16AM (Unverified) said
You know what this is gonna lead to.
Someone creating a website with templates that can distribute "copyrighted" song sheets that can be manually entered into the game. This will in essence circumvent the blocks that are being placed by Activision
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Someone creating a website with templates that can distribute "copyrighted" song sheets that can be manually entered into the game. This will in essence circumvent the blocks that are being placed by Activision
Posted: Sep 30th 2008 8:29AM (Unverified) said
I'm actually surprised they came out and said this before launch. Seems like the kind of thing they'd make public after the fact. Credit to them, I guess.
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Posted: Sep 30th 2008 10:07AM (Unverified) said
If they will be taking down any copyrighted songs, why not allow vocals then? They're supposedly only allowing "original content" anyways.
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Posted: Sep 30th 2008 5:49PM (Unverified) said
The instruments work on sounds already in the game. The vocals would require an actual track, which would make the songs considerably larger.
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Posted: Oct 14th 2008 6:28PM (Unverified) said
You guys fail to see the big picture. How many times are people gonna put out a song with a really cool title, thats just a rework of Never Gonna Give You Up?
GUITAR HERO RICK ROLLING!
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GUITAR HERO RICK ROLLING!
Posted: Oct 15th 2008 9:49PM (Unverified) said
I'm pretty sure that this only goes for things that are uploaded. if you want to enjoy covers at your own home, without distributing them at all, I'm pretty sure they can't do anything about it. Especially for PS2 owners, who don't have a network to be observed on.
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Posted: Oct 22nd 2008 8:27PM (Unverified) said
somebody please answer this for me: i know you can create your own songs, but does that mean you can upload any song, say through a CD onto your harddrive, take that file, and then compose it into a Guitar Hero track with the sound of the file?....the way im seeing it now is that you can not do that and i really hope im wrong because it would be super awesome if you could use the sounds from an MP3 or MP4 file off a music device or CD. (this would be similar to how mods create their songs for Youtube videos).
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